CHAPTER 64. A LAST RETROSPECT

And now my written story ends. I look back, once more--for the last

time--before I close these leaves.

I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life.

I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of

many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on.

What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, these;

all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question!

Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score

years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a

stretch in winter weather.

Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in

spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to the

lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a

yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St.

Paul’s upon the lid.

The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days,

when I wondered why the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples,

are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole

neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still);

but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket

nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching

at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour

at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt’s old disappointment is set

right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora

(the next in order) says she spoils her.

There is something bulky in Peggotty’s pocket. It is nothing smaller

than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by

this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which

Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very

curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile

stories; and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of

Sheffield.

Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant

kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there

are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods

and winks, ‘Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the

Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt’s the most

extraordinary woman in the world, sir!’

Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me

a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty,

feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the

mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered

woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say.

‘Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman’s name.’

Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, ‘Mr. Copperfield.’

‘I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I

hope Time will be good to you.’

Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids

her look again, tries to rouse her.

‘You have seen my son, sir,’ says the elder lady. ‘Are you reconciled?’

Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans.

Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, ‘Rosa, come to me. He is

dead!’ Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels

with her; now fiercely telling her, ‘I loved him better than you ever

did!’--now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus

I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away,

from year to year.

What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this,

married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can

this be Julia Mills?

Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry

cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured woman

in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin

in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days; never

sings Affection’s Dirge; eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus,

who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in

money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her

better in the Desert of Sahara.

Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a stately

house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no

green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower.

What Julia calls ‘society’, I see; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his

Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me

of the Doctor as ‘so charmingly antique’. But when society is the name

for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is

professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard

mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of

Sahara, and had better find the way out.

And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his Dictionary

(somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. Also

the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so

influential as in days of yore!

Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair

(where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant

friction of his lawyer’s-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old

Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as

I look around me:

‘If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to do!’

‘You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital days,

too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?’

‘When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town talk

then!’

‘At all events,’ says Traddles, ‘if I ever am one--’ ‘Why, you know you

will be.’

‘Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story, as I

said I would.’

We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with

Traddles. It is Sophy’s birthday; and, on our road, Traddles discourses

to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed.

‘I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most

at heart. There’s the Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four

hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the

very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars

and good fellows; there are three of the girls married very comfortably;

there are three more living with us; there are three more keeping house

for the Reverend Horace since Mrs. Crewler’s decease; and all of them

happy.’

‘Except--’ I suggest.

‘Except the Beauty,’ says Traddles. ‘Yes. It was very unfortunate that

she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash and glare

about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our

house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again.’

Traddles’s house is one of the very houses--or it easily may have

been--which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. It

is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room

and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into

upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms for the Beauty and the girls.

There is no room to spare in the house; for more of ‘the girls’ are

here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how

to count. Here, when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to

the door, and handing Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of

breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow

with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy’s birthday, are the three

married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband’s

brothers, and another husband’s cousin, and another husband’s sister,

who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the

same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the

large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from the head,

across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia

metal.

And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these

faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by

which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And

that remains.

I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.

My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear

presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.

O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life

indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows

which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!